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Counting Jewish communities

Counting the Jewish population in the U.S. and uncovering previously unknown Jewish communities has become an annual project for Arnold Dashefsky, his graduate students, and his colleagues.

Dashefsky, the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies, and his colleague Ira Sheskin, a human geographer at the University of Miami, recently found that there are about 6.6 million Jews in the U.S., a figure 20 percent higher than the one reported in a 2000 National Jewish Population Survey.

The exact figure is hard to establish – defining who is a Jew is one elusive feature of a population count – but Dashefsky and Sheskin have been refining their project for five years. Each year, they are discovering new, previously unreported Jewish communities.

“People who follow this issue are intrigued by it,” says Dashefsky, a sociologist who is director of the North American Jewish Data Bank, which is housed at UConn.

For many years the American Jewish Yearbook had published a crude estimate of the number of U.S. Jews, he says. The publication, now out of business, dropped its estimates in 2009. Dashefsky and Sheskin decided to take on the project. Sheskin had previously done many local Jewish population studies.

Their latest figure, published online in December, included more than 900 communities around the U.S. Some of these are counted through informed estimates. The majority of the Jewish population, which is often found in urban areas, has been counted in more scientific surveys done over the past decade.

“It’s really an aggregation of a variety of different estimates,” says Dashefsky.

A 2010 survey of New Haven, Conn., for instance, used a variety of methods, including random digit dialing, and it found 23,000 Jewish persons living in 11,000 Jewish households. A wealth of other information was obtained, too, such as the median age (52), religious practices (15 percent kept a kosher home), intermarriage rates (34 percent) and health needs.

Dashefsky and Sheskin acknowledge that their 6.6 million figure for the U.S. Jewish population may be an overestimate, but it is close to what is reported by other social scientists, 6.4 million to 6.5 million. Most scholars set the number closer to 6 million than 5 million, Dashefsky notes.

Two master’s degree students at UConn, Allen Hyde (sociology) and Pamela Weathers (Judaic Studies) are working on the population project this semester. They research references to Jews in municipalities where they haven’t previously been counted, such as the resort community of North Conway, N.H., where the retirement population is growing. While Jews are known to be concentrated in major metropolitan areas, the researchers are also looking at more sparsely populated areas that were previously unexamined, such as Wyoming, Vermont, Mississippi, and North Dakota.

Many new Jewish communities are found each year, Dashefsky says.

The social scientist’s definition of a Jew is used in the survey – that is, one who asserts he or she is Jewish and who is accepted by others as a Jew. The religious definition varies, Dashefsky points out. The traditional view defines a Jew as one born of a Jewish mother, for example, while the Reform view is broader, identifying a Jew as one born of a Jewish parent. What constitutes conversion also has different interpretations.

Why do the survey? It is part of the data bank’s function to acquire and archive data on North American Jewry, and the survey fulfills a scholarly agenda of gathering new information about this community.

“The quantitative data available at the North American Jewish Data Bank may be unique among religious and ethnic groups in the U.S., and it is freely accessible,” Dashefky says.

“In a broader sense, from the point of view of the Jewish community, the larger, fundamental goal is to help its members enhance their Jewish identity and to improve the cohesiveness of the community,” he adds.

Knowing where the Jewish community is located and how large it is will help Jewish organizations develop policies to meet its needs. If a particular population is older, it might need aging programs; if younger, it might need pre-school programs.

Join us for a talk by Gina Barreca,2018 UCONN BOARD OF TRUSTEESDISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

All great works of fiction, poetry and dramaâas well as texts forming mythologies, religions, national epics to heroic sagasâhave loneliness at the heart of their narrative. From Persephone to Peter Pan, from âFrankensteinâ to âFrozen,â the stories we pass along are saturated with unwilling isolation.âOnly around half of Americans say they have meaningful, daily face-to-face social interactions,â according to a 2017 study. A former U.S. Surgeon General argues that âWe live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s.â We need more than social media. We need social contact. We need community. How can we break through the loneliness barrier? Being alone when in need of companionship is more than sad; itâs an epidemic.Chronic loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. We need to change our national story and, often, our personal ones as well.Even the concept of the âlone wolfâ is a myth. Wolves hunt in packs.

Reception to follow.

For more information about this event, or if you are an individual who requires special accommodation to participate, please contact the CLAS Deanâs Office at (860) 486-2713.

A liberal arts and sciences degree prepares students with the tools they need to excel across a wide range of careers. Given the number of options available to you, it can be overwhelming to narrow down career choices. Attending CLAS Career Night will provide you exposure to career opportunities for CLAS students.

This semesterâs focus will be on research-based careers. During this event you will engage with CLAS alumni, learn about various occupations, and gain insight about how to best prepare for your future career.

The McNair Scholars Program and the Office of Undergraduate Research invite you to join us for a brown bag research seminar.

Birds, Bacteria, and Bioinformatics: Why Evolutionary Biology is the Best

Sarah Hird, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

This series is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, and is designed especially for students conducting (or interested in conducting) STEM research. These seminars are opportunities to learn about research being pursued around campus, to talk with faculty about their path into research, and to ask questions about getting involved in research.

About CLAS

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the academic core of learning and research at UConn. We are committed to the full spectrum of academics across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We give students a liberal arts and sciences education that empowers them with broad knowledge, transferable skills, and an ability to think critically about important issues across a variety of disciplines.